Pro Wrestling & Sexuality: Where Does Sports Entertainment Stand in 2017?

At the time of writing this entry, it is Pride month in 2017. With how far sexuality identity has come in mainstream society, I thought it would be interesting to look at how this issues has progressed in professional wrestling.

Throughout history, professional wrestling has been notorious for creating villains out of people because of their differences, it is no surprise that the industry has had some difficulty portraying LGBT characters well. For the sake of brevity, I will be looking at from the year 2000 through today.

The earliest notable characters we will be looking at are Billy and Chuck. Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo became a tag team after Chuck Palumbo was kicked out of the Alliance. As the team progressed, the two began to become affectionate towards one another. As the affection became more frequent and forward, Billy and Chuck had essentially become a homosexual couple. Eventually, there was a proposal, and the two would have a commitment ceremony on Smackdown. GLAAD even publicly supported the team and the ceremony. Until the ceremony happened. The ceremony included moments like the duo dancing in the ring to "It's Raining Men," a pimp coming to the ring to convince the two to become straight again, and eventually, when the ceremony was about to become official, Billy shouting that the entire thing has been a publicity stunt. The crowd erupted in cheers, after generally trashing the entire segment. The two continued as a tag team for a bit longer, though immediately dropped all aspects of the gimmick that made the team appear as stereotypical homosexuals.

While Billy and Chuck were developing their relationship, they hired a personal stylist. Rico made his debut in March of 2002, and continued with the character, becoming more and more flamboyant and ambiguous until 2004, when he was released from the company. One of the biggest exotico characters in mainstream wrestling, Rico was definitely one of the most memorable gimmicks of the period.

As recently as October of 2006 the WWE had run bra and panties matches - matches where the winner was the competitor who removed all of the opponents clothing, aside from the previously mentioned garments. Female talent was more likely to be found from swimsuit magazines than wrestling schools. TNA, on the other hand, had what most would consider a more talented women's roster (or Knockouts, as the company referred to them), the fact that the talent was treated as legitimate competitors certainly helped the female talent seem much more serious. When TNA signed Orlando Jordan in 2010, who was released by WWE shortly after pitching a bisexual character (which is how he identifies himself), we would see what they would do with sexual orientation.

At the beginning of Jordan's run with the company, he would find himself accompanied by both a male and female valet who were portrayed as love interests. With an overly sexualized gimmick, he started a feud with Rob Terry, where the two battled for the global championship. Using mind games to taunt the overly macho Terry, Jordan almost started to become similar to an early Goldust. Eventually, however, Jordan would quickly find himself becoming aa stereotypical homosexual character in the world of professional wrestling. Still, the early work of this character was interesting, and it was nice to see TNA running with the gimmick that the WWE originally rejected.

Another notable character, in 2011 Joey Ryan performed under the name Chase Walker in the Wrestling Retribution Project. Walker performed without any of the stereotypes that had been traditionally associated with homosexual characters. Heel rivals began to threaten to out his character to the audience, and eventually did. The following week, Walker came to the ring and came out publicly to the audience and continued to perform as an openly gay character. This was an incredibly progressive storyline, and it was nice to see that he wasn't treated any differently than other performers by fans.

On the current WWE roster, Darren Young is a member of the Raw brand. While he is openly gay in real life, his character really doesn't have any sort of leanings or love interest angles. I appreciate this approach, as there are tons of performers who never have any sort of romance angles. Some have raised issue with the fact that his on air persona doesn't have his orientation referenced at all. Regardless of where you stand on the argument, I felt that he was an important person to include. I am curious to see if his sexual orientation is something that is ever brought up on screen.

While the world of professional wrestling still has quite a way to go in terms of equality, I do believe progress is being made in the way the LGBT community is presented. The four examples above show how far we have come just since the turn of the century.